Burmese Dwellers

So we’re one week in Burma and what is there to say? Well, a lot, actually, but it’s hard to get everything neat and settled. I do have some highlights or at least a couple of eyebrow-raising facts about Burmese dwellers.

For one, I can honestly say from personal experience that Burmese crows can tell foreigners from locals and that’s not only smart but also very annoying. There might also be something called ‘being in the wrong place at the wrong time’ or, better yet, ‘being the only person in the wrong place at the wrong time’, which is to say that maybe crows don’t really have anything against foreigners. But there are a lot of locally bred crows. And, as with any respectable tourist, I had to see this Yangon (Rangoon) lake, where apart from the 6 o’clock mosquitoes, there is the 6 o’clock crow invasion into the trees around the lake. I was strolling peacefully, looking for a good place to sit down in the grass and admire the sunset but the crows were having none of it. They stalked me, droning and flapping above me and, for the sake of my clothes and my happiness I surrendered and sheepishly went looking for a treeless spot.

But really, the ones that do have a chronic dislike for foreigners are the dogs, not all, mind you, but some so the best thing to do (which I started doing right after a dog chose to yap at me and chase me away from a Buddhist monastery no less) is to avoid eye contact or, for that matter, any other type of close contact with any dogs.

I left Yangon (Rangoon) to go to Pyay, a small town on the Ayeyarwady River (tongue-twister, right?) all the while reading George Orwell’s Burmese Days. And apart from the main character’s name (Flory), what struck me was the first description from the first chapter: the enormously huge persona of the soon-to-be villain of the book, an old Burmese guy who had trouble getting up from a chair because of his, ahem, spherical form. And sure enough, as I arrived at the guesthouse, an enormously huge Burmese guy greeted me and showed me to my room on the top floor of his guesthouse, a place he reached panting and sweating and only once throughout my entire stay. And when I stepped out in search for something to eat, he stopped me and showed me what he had to offer: services as motorcycle and tour guide to the pagodas in town; services as motorcycle and tour guide to the pagodas outside of town; motorcycle rental (which is not yet done in Myanmar so it might have been a little on the close-encounter-with-the-police-and-not-liking-it side); bicycle rental; bus and minibus tickets to wherever, etc. That’s how he became the villain of my day, as he wouldn’t stop advertising every service known to man and I was really starving. The next day though, he became my personal hero, for I asked him where I could find Indian food and, possibly because it was easier than explaining, he jumped on his motorcycle (that’s an overstatement) beckoning me to get on and he promptly gave me the grand tour of the three Indian restaurants in the city.

I also had another benefactor on my way to Pyay: an elderly Burmese chap, teacher of some sort (he said English teacher but I still have trouble believing it), who sat next to me on the bus, and bought me a can of Coke (which I had to drink, for it would have been rude to refuse) and paid for our trip from the bus station to his house and my guesthouse respectively. A $2 ride which he paid all by himself and didn’t even listen to my pleas of pitching in…

I arrived in Pakokku and went straight to the guesthouse recommended by the Lonely Planet (which, only just this time, did not disappoint me). But it was 5 o’clock in the morning and I was quite sure that everyone was still asleep at the guesthouse. When I tried to explain this to the motorcycle driver that brought me from the bus station, he would not listen and started honking, so he’d be sure I wouldn’t be left stranded in the alley. Eventually, I shooed him away and decided to wait for an hour or so until somebody would get up. But my plan was terminated as the next door neighbour saw that I was waiting and came running to my help. In spite of all my objections he started yelling through the front door and in a minute everybody was up. This is how I startled a wonderful old lady (the best English speaking Burmese I’ve met so far), who keeps her guesthouse for more than 30 years now and whose whole-hearted and calm manners charmed me like they charmed the Lonely Planet fellows. Needless to say I don’t think I very much charmed her…

Before ending I just want to put things in perspective with the thing I have to deal with every day: I got at a Tea and Cold place:

‘Coffee please’. That’s how I usually do it.

And the inevitable answer: ‘One?’

‘Water please.’ That’s another thing I ask for.

‘One?’

‘Beer please.’ It’s one of the things I also order, albeit not at the Tea and Cold places.

‘One?’

…

Well, Burmese people, you are more insightful than I thought but my other personalities don’t wish to join me for drinks.